


Issues with the Narnia timeline

by ElrondsScribe



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Essays, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 19:21:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5597800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElrondsScribe/pseuds/ElrondsScribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a rambling essay about the adjustments that need to be made to the Narnia timeline that I needed to throw up somewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1, Version 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the original essay. There have since been substantial edits.

In brief, I found the timeline that C. S. Lewis constructed for the Narnia chronicles to be rather contradictory to what’s in the books concerning when and how far apart everything happens. Oddly enough, there are even a couple of places where the books contradict  _ themselves _ on these points.

Just to make life a bit easier on you, I’ll give you the English side of the timeline:

Digory is born in 1889

Polly is born in 1890

_ The Magician’s Nephew _ occurs in 1900

Peter is born in 1927, Susan in 1928, Edmund in 1930, and Lucy in 1932

Jill and Eustace are both born in 1933

_ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe _ occurs in 1940

_ Prince Caspian _ occurs in 1941

_ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader _ and  _ The Silver Chair _ both take place in 1942

_ The Last Battle _ occurs in 1949 (or possibly 1943)

oo0oo

First off, a birth date of 1889 would only place Digory Kirke in at age sixty-one by  _ LWW _ and sixty-six by  _ LB _ . Sixty-one is really not old enough to be “a very old man with shaggy white hair” - that’s salt-and-pepper age for most people. Same with Polly, who’d be sixty-five in  _ LB _ and not old enough to make Tirian at glance think of her as “old” in his dream-vision-whatever. But we can’t really make them any older, because they are definitely children during  _ MN _ (Polly is just old enough to not want to put shiny things in her mouth) and  _ MN _ takes place sometime between 1894 ( _ The Adventure of the Empty House _ ) and 1904 ( _ The Adventure of the Second Stain _ ). In case you didn’t know, that’s the period that marks the latter part of Sherlock Holmes’ life in Baker Street solving mysteries, which Lewis specifically references (“In those days Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street…”)

Also, according to  _ LWW _ “there was really only a year’s difference” between Edmund and Lucy, and the timeline has them born two calendar years apart, which at best certainly makes more than “a year’s difference.” If it had been a year and a half’s difference, Lewis probably would have said so, particularly as he seems to be emphasizing how much older than Lucy Edmund  _ isn't _ . So either we can move Edmund's birth forward a year or Lucy's birth back a year (in both cases to 1931).

In the beginning of  _ LWW, _ Peter and his siblings are said to have been sent away from London “because of the air raids,” which could only mean the London Blitz in 1940-41 (according to the timeline it’s ‘40). Peter is presumably not old enough to even try pretending he’s eighteen and old enough to enlist (and he seems to be the kind of boy who’d try!), which means he must be fifteen or younger. This at least is consistent with the timeline - according to it he’s thirteen.

_ PC _ according to the timeline takes place in 1941, which is consistent with the book, as the events of  _ LWW _ are “a year ago” at this point. It also says that Lucy is “going to boarding school for the very first time,” meaning that she’s starting secondary school. Now Lucy is supposedly born in ‘32, making her nine at this point by the timeline (or ten, if we've moved her birth year back to 1931). I have it on good authority that even before the 1944 Butler Act some kids were starting boarding school at eleven, so once again the timeline and the text do not agree with each other. If Lucy really is going to boarding school for the first time (unless hers and Susan’s is a prep school), and  _ PC _ does indeed occur in 1941, we must move her birth year back to 1930.

Now comes what I think is actually an error within the text.  _ VDT _ mentions the previous Narnia adventures as “long ago during the war years.” Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute - this can’t be after the end of WW2, can it? No, it can’t, because Edmund tells Caspian that “it’s been a year ago by our time” since he and his siblings visited Narnia last - it’s only 1942 (consistent with the timeline again)!

Interestingly enough, the timeline indicates that  _ SC _ happens the same calendar year as  _ VDT _ , and this is supported by the books as well - when Eustace finds Jill crying behind the gym he tells her about how he got into Narnia “last hols” and it’s quite early in the school term. [Lucky bastard, Eustace - two visits to Narnia, at most three and a half months apart! On the other hand, it kinda helps explain his almost physical shock at seeing the  _ decades _ that have apparently gone by in what for him is ten weeks’ time or less.]

And now,  _ The Last Battle. _ There are all sorts of problems here. According to the timeline this is either 1943 or 1949 - apparently Lewis’ handwriting makes this unclear. Men and illegible handwriting - how typical :) Anyhow, Eustace tells Tirian that the events of  _ SC _ happened “more than a year ago.” Hold up -  _ SC _ happened two weeks into the school year, so if  _ LB _ takes place in early autumn only one calendar year later (1943), it and  _ SC _ are actually  _ less _ than a year apart, because the school year hasn’t started yet (they’re taking the train down to school). Eustace seems to be a detail-oriented nerdy kind of person who would probably say “less than a year” if it really had been, so the easiest answer is to attribute the error to Lewis and pretend that he has Eustace say “nearly a year ago” rather than “more than a year ago.” This would put  _ LB _ in the autumn of 1943, as the timeline might be saying, except for one other problem which I will mention below.

Another option is that when Jill and Eustace got whisked off the train they were going back to school after their Christmas holidays for the second half of their school year. This scenario would put LB in January of 1944, which makes it incompatible with the timeline, whether Lewis meant to write in 1949 or 1943. Which is also a little problematic because digging up people’s backyards at that time of year is less likely to have been such “glorious fun” as Eustace seems to think.

A further complication is the fact that Eustace states that he and Jill are “the only two still at school,” which would mean that all the four Pevensies are at least fourteen and older (because fourteen was the compulsory leaving age up until 1947 - and yes, I  _ know _ the Butler Act was proposed in 1944, but it wasn't enforced until 1947). That means Lucy, the youngest, has to be fourteen at the very youngest, so if we place LB in 1944 we can’t accept her birth year as having been 1932 (she’d only be twelve) or even 1931 (she’d only be thirteen).

We either have to bump back the date of Lucy’s birth to 1930 (and Jill and Eustace’s birth year to 1931), or we have to bump up the date of _LB_ to 1946/47. We can’t move farther than that, though, because  either _LB_ occurring in 1948 or later  or birthdates of 1929 or earlier would make Jill and Eustace fifteen or older by _LB_ , and unlikely to still be at school.

Another reason we can’t move birth years too far back is that by the London Blitz Peter must be no older than sixteen and so born no earlier than 1924, putting Lucy’s birth at 1929. Otherwise he really does seem the kind of boy who’d lie about his age and try to enlist, and there’s no indication at all in the text that the thought has even crossed his mind.

And then in  _ LB _ Tirian (who is no older than twenty-five, and may be as young as twenty) thinks of Peter as “hardly full grown, certainly younger than {Tirian} himself” so Peter can at this point be no older than eighteen, which directly affects the ages of his siblings and of Eustace and Jill.

If we keep  _ LB _ at either winter or late summer 1944 and bump back everybody’s birth dates two years (and no further), we then have to shift their ages in all the preceding books. Conceptually, this isn’t too terribly hard to do, as in the text of the book ages are almost never explicitly given, only hinted at. It’s just more work - Peter is now born in 1925/26, Susan in 1926/27, Edmund in 1928/29, Lucy in 1930, and Jill and Eustace in 1931.

For the purposes of my story, I’ve placed the events of  _ LB _ (and the beginning of  _ Harry Potter and the Most Noble Order of the Lion _ ) in early autumn 1944. My timeline read as follows:

Peter born in 1926

Susan born in 1927

Edmund born in 1929

Lucy born in 1930

Eustace and Jill born in 1931

_ LWW _ occurs in 1940

_ PC _ occurs in 1941

_ VDT  _ and  _ SC _ occur in 1942

_ LB _ occurs in 1944

So by  _ LB, _  Jill and Eustace are fourteen, Lucy is fifteen, Edmund is fifteen, Susan is seventeen, and Peter is eighteen. I still have no idea how to reconcile Polly and Digory’s ages, so they and the date for  _ MN _ remain unchanged (1889, 1890, and 1900 respectively).


	2. Part 1, Version 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The edited and revised version of Part 1.

_ LWW _ \-  _ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe _

_ PC - Prince Caspian _

_ VDT - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader _

_ SC - The Silver Chair _

_ LB - The Last Battle _

oo0oo

So I did some more research and had a long conversation with someone who is much more knowledgeable about education in the UK than I am (an actual Brit, imagine that!), and I need to make some corrections to the timeline I originally came up with.

There are apparently indications in the text that the Pevensie children (and Eustace and Jill) are no lower than upper middle class. Now UK children in their position often go to what’s called preparatory school or prep school (a fee-paying school that might be either a day school or a boarding school), and after that proceed to a public boarding school or a senior school. Prep school starts mostly at age 8, though I hear that during WW2 they sometimes would accept students as young as 4 or 5 if their parents couldn’t care for them.

In the beginning of  _ PC _ the four Pevensie kids are all waiting for their trains that will take Peter and Edmund to one school and Susan and Lucy to another school, which means their schools are single-sex. Lucy is “going to boarding school for the first time” so she’s either starting a girls’ prep school or a girls’ senior school. Starting prep school would make her outrageously young - likely 8 and possibly 4 - and it would mean that she was even younger during  _ LWW _ , so I’m almost certain she must have been starting senior school.

According to Wikipedia (yes, I know, okay?) most single-sex girls’ senior schools start at age 11, and co-ed schools start at 13. However, I’ve also been told that most English senior boarding schools that accept children at 11 (like Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books) are specialized schools like choir schools, and that if Lucy is going to senior school she’s probably 13.

The reason we know she’s 13 is this: we know from  _ LWW _ that “there was really only a year’s difference” between Edmund and Lucy (and this statement is made while the author is trying to tell us how far apart in age they  _ aren't _ ) so if in  _ PC _ Lucy is 11 or 13 Edmund is almost certainly either 12 or 14 _. _ And given that Peter and Edmund are headed for the same school, we know Edmund has to be 14 (because boys’ senior schools start at 13). Therefore, Lucy must be 13.

In  _ VDT _ Susan gets to go to America with her parents for the summer because Mum thinks she’ll benefit from the trip more than will “the youngsters” Lucy and Edmund. This implies that there’s more than a year between Susan and Edmund. Also Peter is “studying very hard for an exam” which sounds like he might be starting university in the autumn, in which case he’d be 18 (or close to it). So if Lucy is 14 and Edmund is 15, a gap of more than a year puts Susan at 17 and a year behind Peter (if my hypothesis about university is correct).

Incidentally, Aslan’s statement about being too old is starting to make much more sense. If Peter was seventeen and Susan sixteen in  _ PC _ (or even sixteen-almost-seventeen and fifteen-almost-sixteen), it really was time for them to start moving closer to their own world. Same with Edmund and Lucy in  _ VDT _ , who would have been 15 and 14.

So - by  _ PC _ Lucy is 13, Edmund is 14, Susan is probably 16 and Peter is probably 17. By  _ VDT _ Peter is probably eighteen, Susan probably seventeen, Edmund 15, and Lucy 14.

As for Eustace, we know that by  _ SC _ (which follows no more than four months after  _ VDT _ ) this is at least his second year at Experiment House (“Then wash out last term, if you can”). If Eustace’s parents are posh like Lucy and Edmund’s, than Experiment House is either a prep school or a senior school. If it’s a prep school, then Eustace (and Jill) are 9. If it’s a senior school, then they are 14. They’re probably not older than that, because the fact that Jill and Eustace refer to “this term” and “last term” with no preferences to previous years hints that  _ SC _ marks the start of their second year at Experiment House (or at least their second year together).

Given the fact that in  _ VDT _ Eustace could eventually handle a sword made for an adult, I think it much likelier that he was 13 than 8, which by  _ SC _ puts him at 14 rather than 9. Jill seems to be the same age as Eustace, as neither bring up any difference in age in their numerous fights, so she must be around fourteen too.

So - by  _ SC _ Eustace and Jill are 14, Lucy is 15, Edmund is 16, Susan is probably 18 and Peter is probably 19.

Now by  _ LB _ Jill and Eustace are the only two still at school, which means Lucy’s probably 18 or at least 16 (you could leave senior school at 16 but most kids left at 18). That puts Jill and Eustace at either 15 or 17. If they’re fifteen it puts  _ LB _ one calendar year after  _ SC _ and almost compatible with Eustace’s “more than a year” comment if we re-imagine it as having been “nearly a year.” On the other hand, this would require not only Lucy but also Edmund to have left school earlier than usual (Edmund, the reader of detective stories who “knows about railways” and in general seems fairly academically inclined), so it’s more likely that he is 19 and Lucy 18. This makes Jill and Eustace both 17 and puts  _ LB _ four calendar years after  _ SC _ .

This also makes Susan about 21 and Peter about 22.

When I asked the person I was talking to about school in the UK why Tirian (who’s no older than 25) thinks of Peter as “hardly full grown, certainly younger than himself” when by these calculations there are in actuality three years or less between them, she reminded me that Peter is after all a nicely educated 20th century 22-year-old and Tirian is a weather-beaten, horseback-riding, sword-wielding twenty-something warrior. By our standards, Tirian would look much older than 25.

[To further widen the apparent-rather-than-actual gap, the possibility exists that Tirian took up the kingship as a teenager. If he has had the chance to save Jewel’s life and have Jewel save his life numerous times “in the wars” then he’s been on the throne for at least two years and probably longer. If he’s been on the throne for longer than five years, he was 19 or younger when his father Erlian died of his wounds from the fight with the unnamed Giant. If that doesn’t make a man out of a boy in a hurry, I don't know what does.]

To recap:

By  _ PC _ Lucy is 13, Edmund 14, Susan 16, and Peter 17

By  _ VDT _ (and a few months later in  _ SC _ ) Eustace is 13, Lucy is 14, Edmund is 15, Susan is 17, and Peter is 18

By  _ LB _ Jill and Eustace are 17, Lucy is 18, Edmund is 19, Susan is 21, and Peter is 22.

Of course for  _ LWW _ (which is stated to have occurred one year before  _ PC _ ) this puts Lucy at 12, Edmund at 13, Susan at 15, and Peter at 16 - terribly young to be crowned Kings and Queens, but not quite as insanely young as the original timeline makes them out to be (Lucy being 8 and all).

Now that we’ve established ages, let’s pin down dates.

_ LWW _ takes place in 1940 or 1941 (this we know because it was during the London Blitz). Now according to Wikipedia the Blitz started in September of ‘40 and ended in May of ‘41. The kids must have to have been sent to stay with the Professor either right at the beginning of the Blitz (1940) or right at the end (1941) because the weather alternates between rain and sunshine that’s warm enough to play outside in. The original timeline puts  _ LWW _ in 1940. If we accept this (which I do because I’m fairly sure a concerned parent would send their children to safety sooner rather than later), then  _ PC _ follows a year after  _ LWW _ in 1941,  _ VDT _ and  _ SC _ follow a year after  _ PC _ in 1942, and  _ LB _ follows four years after  _ SC _ in 1945.

Here is my new timeline:

Peter born 1924

Susan born 1925

Edmund born 1927

Lucy born 1928

Jill and Eustace born 1929

_ LWW _ in 1940

_ PC _ in 1941

_ VDT _ and  _ SC _ in 1942

_ LB _ in 1946

 

Or, to read the same thing another way:

_ LWW _ (1940) - Peter is 16, Susan is 15, Edmund is 13, and Lucy is 12 [Eustace and Jill are 11]

_ PC _ (1941) - Peter is 17, Susan is 16, Edmund is 14, and Lucy is 13 [Eustace and Jill are 12]

_ VDT _ and  _ SC _ (1942) - [Peter is 18, and Susan is 17] Edmund is 15, Lucy is 14, and Eustace is 13 [as is Jill]

_ LB _ (1946) - Peter is 22, [Susan is 21] Edmund is 19, Lucy is 18, and Eustace and Jill are 17


End file.
